In Ancient Corinth, a young woman had a pretty good idea: she drew the shadow profile of her lover, which she had cast on the wall with the help of a light source; as a memento of the departing beloved one, who, like most men in mythological narratives, was probably a hero traveling on a mission. Called Dibutade or Kore/Kora/Kallirhoe depending on the source, the protagonist and her story are often stylised as the origin myth of painting. What has remained of Kore are romanticised depictions of a young woman painting her lover (often in the presence of a Cupid guiding her hand) – a motif that has been depicted by numerous painters throughout art history. Instead of entering the history of the Western notion of art as an inventive maker, Kore herself was reduced to being a muse.
Newmen's works do not only create critical references to (art) historically female-attributed roles, but also points out that the exclusion mechanisms established for centuries in relation to the intersectional categories of gender, race, sexuality, and social class are still reflected in monetary and representational realities today; female identifying artists remain underpaid and institutionally underrepresented in gender-specific comparisons.(2)
2) Women make up the majority of students at art academies (70%), but are affected by the gender pay gap (30% in 2021) as well as the so-called gender show gap, which assesses the gallery representation of women and their presence in exhibitions or at fairs. In the context of historical collections, the gender-specific comparative numbers are even more extreme. The Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, for example, has a maximum of 2% female artists in its collection. In its recently opened exhibition Secessions: Klimt, Liebermann, Stuck, 220 works by men and 15 by women are featured, as the organisation fair share! recently published on Instagram.
